“Open this door. By order of the Empire!”
Startled, I nearly flung myself off the bed as the pounding shattered my first good night’s sleep in days. By the time I’d gathered my wits, Marilyn was on her feet.
I looked at her, waiting for some sort of direction.
She held a finger up to her lips, at which I rolled my eyes and gestured impatiently, as if to tell her, Yes I know, I’m not a complete blockhead. Then she pointed at the single window of our room.
I looked at it, my stomach dropping with new dread. We were on the third floor of the inn. I knew myself—I was nowhere near nimble enough to execute a safe exit down the sloping shingles of the roof.
I caught Marilyn’s eye and shook my head sharply, hoping she took my meaning: no fucking way.
“Open up!” The gruff voice shouted again, and the volume of the pounding seemed to double. Whoever was out there, they weren’t going to be patient much longer. I glanced at the door. Cheap wood, old hinges. It wouldn’t hold for a second if they tried to break it down.
I looked back to Marilyn, but she was no longer beside her bed. To my dismay, I found her beside the window, throwing up the sash and letting in the cool night air.
I rushed over to her and whispered with utmost urgency: “I’m not climbing down this roof, Marilyn!”
She looked at me with a frank expression. “Do you trust me at all?”
“No!”
She nodded. “Okay. Have fun being captured and imprisoned, then.” And she lifted herself up and out of the window.
Cursing bitterly, I spun about the room, my heart pounding. Marilyn hadn’t taken the time to grab any of our supplies—or even put on her shoes, I realized. I grabbed everything in a disorganized armful, shoving my feet into my shoes without tying them, even taking the time to grab Marilyn’s and set them on top of my bundle.
“You are reported to be consorting with enemies of the Empire!” The voice called from the other side of the door. “Open up now or we’ll break the door down!”
I decided I was out of time. No thinking, just doing. It was the only way I’d be able to force myself to do something as ridiculously unsafe as crawling down the roof of an inn.
I ran to the window and peered out. Marilyn was on the ground, gesturing frantically to me from the alley beside the inn.
“Look out,” I called, trying at the same time to be quiet enough that our pursuers wouldn’t hear, but loud enough that Marilyn would.
I didn’t wait for confirmation that she’d heard me. Opening my arms and heaving outward with my chest, I tossed the bundle of our food, supplies, bedrolls and Marilyn’s shoes out the window.
They exploded, the tied sacks coming apart as they impacted with the slanted surface of the roof. Bundles of salted jerky burst open on the cobblestones of the alley around Marilyn’s feet. Our waterskins sprayed the tiles and trickled down the roof, their contents pooling in the gutter. One of Marilyn’s shoes bonked her right on the head.
I heard an impact behind me, then the splintering of wood. Adrenaline and pure fear forced my body to move. Out the window I went.
My feet collided painfully with the slanted shingles. If I hadn’t slipped my shoes on, I probably would’ve obtained about a hundred splinters in my toes. I couldn’t imagine how Marilyn had gotten down without any struggle.
The downward angle was difficult to walk on, but not impossible. I reached the edge of the lip and peered down, seeing that the second story slant was only about ten feet down. Slinging my sore legs over the side, I pushed off, landing with a bit more grace this time.
“By the Emperor’s taint, Lance!” Marilyn shout-whispered. “Hurry the fuck up!” She was scrambling to gather as much of our exploding supplies as she could hold in her arms. Somehow, she’d managed to put on her shoes.
The drop off the second story was much higher, nearly double the distance I’d gone down before. “It’s too high,” I called to Marilyn. “I’ll break a leg!”
“Jump right now or I’m leaving you behind,” Marilyn snapped, raising a hand toward me.
Magic. She was preparing to use some sort of spell on me.
So, given my clear lack of any better option, I cringed, closed my eyes, and stepped off the roof.
I felt myself tilt and spin as I went down, sincerely hoping that I’d been right to trust the wizard.
Oh, gods, I thought, that’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one, I’m surely about to—
The ground was suddenly beneath me. The impact had been no harder than if Marilyn had lightly smacked the bottom of my foot. I opened my eyes.
“By the gods, don’t piss yourself about it,” Marilyn grumbled, coming over and shoving half the hastily-gathered bundle into my arms. “We need to run now.”
I looked at the supplies she’d managed to gather. “Did you get the beans, at least?”
“They’re in the alley!” A voice came from above.
Marilyn and I looked up. A man’s face was visible, peering down at us.
“Shit,” Marilyn said. “Run!”
She took off, and I did my best to keep pace. I wished bitterly that I’d taken the thirty seconds to tie my shoes. They flopped like dead fish as I ran, nearly tripping me a dozen times. I didn’t give any consideration to where we were going; there was only Marilyn’s fleeing form in front of me, her long grey hair unbraided and flying wild in the night.
Finally, just when my lungs were starting to burn like five hells, I saw the edge of town just ahead. Only a few buildings separated us from the cover of the trees. We were going to escape!
The universe must’ve heard me think that, because at that moment, I heard a voice shout: “Stop them!” It came from somewhere between the last few buildings.
Just as we passed the last torches of the town, I heard footsteps pounding the dirt behind us.
“Stop!”
“Halt in the name of the Empire!”
I heard swords sliding out of scabbards.
“Marilyn!” I cried, not wanting to be sliced open from behind.
I saw Marilyn turn back and throw a ball of literal fire from her palm. I risked a look back as I traced the magic’s path to the guards chasing us. It landed in the dirt and sputtered out without fanfare.
“Marilyn!” I squeaked.
“I need time to rest!” The useless wizard cried. “I used too much mana getting us off the roof!”
“Stop!” One of the guards cried again. From the proximity of his voice, I could tell they were nearly close enough to me to reach out and grab the back of my shirt.
It was at this point that I accepted the fact of my death.
I understood that there would be no escape. We’d gotten lucky back at my farm; Marilyn had hidden us away and gotten us on our way out in the world by cleverly waiting out the investigating lawmen. This time, there was nowhere we could hole up and wait for the guards to give up. Just the thickening trees closing in around us and two employees of the Empire that wanted me captured and put to death for my ‘crimes’.
It was hopeless. I understood that now. I would be captured and hanged. Marilyn too, probably, though I thought she deserved it a bit more than I did. Never again would I turn the soil of my fields, lovingly burying seed pieces at the start of each lovely spring, the newly-born sun warming my back and arms. Never again would I watch my plants sprout up as the months warmed, reaching to the sky with their leafy green hands. Never again would I pull my children from the earth and brush the dirt from their skin, cradling in my hands the result of the work which I enjoyed so dearly.
A shudder ran through me as I mentally said my goodbyes to life and the simple pleasures I’d derived from it. I am not ashamed to admit that a tear may have escaped down my cheek as I screwed my eyes shut, preparing for the end as the guards closed in.
From behind me, I heard a cry and a wet thump. A second set of those sounds followed just a moment later.
I chanced a look back out of pure, unbridled curiosity, despite knowing that I was turning to look into the face of my death.
The two guards lay crumpled in a heap of limbs a few yards back. Their padded armor was covered in mud, and they groaned and cursed as they attempted to rise to their feet, when the mud surrounding them would cause them to slip and fall all over again.
Mud? I couldn’t understand it. It hadn’t rained in the region in weeks, according to Marilyn. She’d surreptitiously checked people’s rain-catchers as we walked through town the evening before, grumbling about the scarcity of water in the late summer.
“Lance, come on!”
Marilyn was gesturing wildly a dozen yards ahead of me. I didn’t understand what had happened, but I knew that this was the chance to escape our pursuers. Whatever gods had allotted me this last chance at life would have to be thanked later.
I found a second wind within myself and took off into the denser trees with Marilyn. The sound of the guards cursing and slipping around in the mud like pigs faded as we put distance between us.
Somehow, we lost them.
We ran and ran until my legs shook with the strain and my lungs felt as though they were bleeding up my throat. Eventually, Marilyn stopped, leaning over with her hands on her thighs and gasping for air. I did the same, my breath a whistling wheeze.
After she gathered enough air to speak, Marilyn panted, “What… the fuck… Lance?”
“What?” I asked between breaths.
“I train you… for days… with no result… and that’s how you decide… to channel magic?”
“Marilyn… what in the Emperor’s taint… are you talking about?”
She pulled herself up and looked at me like a potato covered in soft rot. “You just used magic, you stunted imbecile. You made mud.”
Next chapter drops August 7th, 2026
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